Your weekend preview: What to see (and what to miss) in the theatres

Vroom! Vroom! 

Racing buffs will be pumped to see Ford Vs. Ferrari  (B-plus) takes us back to the 1960s, and the battle by Carroll Shelby (Matt Damon) and the British driver Ken Miles (Christian Bale), who are dispatched by Henry Ford II (Tracy Letts) and Lee Iacocca (Jon Bernthal) to build the Ford GT40, a machine that can finally compete with the Ferrari. Reviewer Jim Slotek says F v. F passes the key test of any racing movie: Maximal experiential intensity.

Charlie’s Angels: The Devil made them do it.

Va-Va Voom? That descriptor might have applied to the original seventies Charlie’s Angels series, big on butt shots and slo-mo hair flips, but not for the new reboot, Charlie’s Angels (C-plus), directed by actress Elizabeth Banks. The new origin movie stars Kristen Stewart, Naomi Scott (Aladdin) and relative newcomer Ella Balinska as a team of fierce female agents, working for an unseen benefactor named Charlie.  Though there are some lively butt-kicking action sequences, says reviewer Thom Ernst, feminist themes are downplayed in favour of  a familiarly silly actioner.

 The Good Liar (C-plus ) stars Sir Ian McKellen as a veteran con artist and Dame Helen Mirren as the widow whom he targets in Bill Condon’s adaptation of Nicholas Searle’s 2009 novel.   Reviewer Jim Slotek warns that The Good Liar “is the sort of suspense thriller that isn’t very good at faking where it’s going” though it’s a joy to watch the two leads at work.

 Finally, we recommend you check out the TIFF Bell LIghtbox retrospective  In The Realm of Oshima: The Best of Japanese Master Nagisa Oshima  (the provocative Japanese director of Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence and In The Realm of the Senses), because, says Liam Lacey, sex and blistering anti-authoritarian politics are never out of style. 

Have a vroom-vroom, va-va voom, weekend!